Men's Swimming

Blodgett Pool turned into a bombing range yesterday, as the Harvard men's swimming team kicked off its season with a huge splash, handily defeating Villanova, 61-42.

Technically, the Crimson captured every event in the meet, but some team members swam their races unofficially.

Tim Ford led the Cantabs with victories in the 500- and 1000-yd. freestyle, finishing the 1000 in 9:32, a respectable time for this early in the season.

The Crimson's numerous freshmen also contributed greatly to the victory. Yardling David Berkoff swam a 1:56 in capturing the 200-yd. individual medley, and led off the 400-yd. medley relay team with a 52.8 backstroke performance.

Freshman Chris Gould also swam well, capturing second place in both the 50-and 100-yd. freestyle events.

"The freshmen really showed their colors," said senior Co-Captain Brian Grottkau.

"It's a great change from last year, when we lost our opening meet to Navy," said sophomore Lars Reierson, who swam a 2:13 in winning the 200-yd. breaststroke. "We got to show the freshmen what caliber swim team we really are," he added.

About halfway through the meet, when it was clear that the Crimson would blow away the visitors. Harvard chose to enter swimmers unofficially in order to let Villanova score more points.

Harvard now prepares to host a pair of weekend dual meets, Friday against Navy and Sunday versus Columbia. Navy stung the aquamen for a loss-Harvard's first in 32 consecutive dual meets--in last year's opener, and Columbia hit them for their only other defeat one day later.

"Navy's going to be primed to beat us," said Reierson, adding. "We're ready to humiliate them."

"It'll be a meet we can get psyched for," said Grottkau, adding ominously. "We're looking to get back at Navy for last year. Likewise for Columbia."